Propositions may also be built up, not out of other propositions but out of elements that are not themselves propositions. The simplest kind to be considered here are propositions in which a certain object or individual (in a wide sense) is said to possess a certain property or characteristic; e.g., “Socrates is wise” and “The number 7 is prime.” Such a proposition contains two distinguishable parts: (1) an expression that names or designates an individual and (2) an expression, called a predicate, that stands for the property that that individual is said to possess. If x, y, z, … are used as individual variables (replaceable by names of individuals) and the symbols ϕ (phi), ψ (psi), χ (chi), … as predicate variables (replaceable by predicates), the formula ϕx is used to express the form of the propositions in question. Here x is said to be the argument of ϕ; a predicate (or predicate variable) with only a single argument is said to be a monadic, or one-place, predicate (variable). Predicates with two or more arguments stand not for properties of single individuals but for relations between individuals. Thus the proposition “Tom is a son of John” is analyzable into two names of individuals (“Tom” and “John”) and a dyadic or two-place predicate (“is a son of”), of which they are the arguments; and the proposition is thus of the form ϕxy. Analogously, “… is between … and …” is a three-place predicate, requiring three arguments, and so on. In general, a predicate variable followed by any number of individual variables is a wff of the predicate calculus. Such a wff is known as an atomic formula, and the predicate variable in it is said to be of degree n, if n is the number of individual variables following it. The degree of a predicate variable is sometimes indicated by a superscript—e.g., ϕxyz may be written as ϕ3xyz; ϕ3xy would then be regarded as not well formed. This practice is theoretically more accurate, but the superscripts are commonly omitted for ease of reading when no confusion is likely to arise.

Atomic formulas may be combined with truth-functional operators to give formulas such as ϕx ∨ ψy [example: “Either the customer (x) is friendly (ϕ) or else John (y) is disappointed (ψ)”]; ψxy ⊃ ∼ψx [example: “If the road (x) is above (ϕ) the flood line (y), then the road is not wet (∼ψ)”]; and so on. Formulas so formed, however, are valid when and only when they are substitution-instances of valid wffs of PC and hence in a sense do not transcend PC. More interesting formulas are formed by the use, in addition, of quantifiers. There are two kinds of quantifiers: universal quantifiers, written as “(∀ )” or often simply as “,” where the blank is filled by a variable, which may be read, “For all —”; and existential quantifiers, written as “(∃ ),” which may be read, “For some —” or “There is a — such that.” (“Some” is to be understood as meaning “at least one.”) Thus, (∀x)ϕx is to mean “For all x, x is ϕ” or, more simply, “Everything is ϕ”; and (∃x)ϕx is to mean “For some x, x is ϕ” or, more simply, “Something is ϕ” or “There is a ϕ.” Slightly more complex examples are (∀x)(ϕx ⊃ ψx) for “Whatever is ϕ is ψ,” (∃x)(ϕx · ψx) for “Something is both ϕ and ψ,” (∀x)(∃y)ϕxy for “Everything bears the relation ϕ to at least one thing,” and (∃x)(∀y)ϕxy for “There is something that bears the relation ϕ to everything.” To take a concrete case, if ϕxy means “x loves y” and the values of x and y are taken to be human beings, then the last two formulas mean, respectively, “Everybody loves somebody” and “Somebody loves everybody.”

Intuitively, the notions expressed by the words some and every are connected in the following way: to assert that something has a certain property amounts to denying that everything lacks that property (for example, to say that something is white is to say that not everything is nonwhite); and, similarly, to assert that everything has a certain property amounts to denying that there is something that lacks it. These intuitive connections are reflected in the usual practice of taking one of the quantifiers as primitive and defining the other in terms of it. Thus ∀ may be taken as primitive, and ∃ introduced by the definition(∃a)α =Df ∼(∀a)∼α,in which a is any variable and α is any wff; alternatively, ∃ may be taken as primitive, and ∀ introduced by the definition(∀a)α =Df ∼(∃a)∼α.

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